Chapter Six: The Voice

Valerio’s POV

“Mommy? Who’s there?”

The second I hear the small voice behind her, something in my chest twists hard.

Mommy?

Her face goes pale in the crack of the doorway, and her eyes widen. She glances back over her shoulder, and then at me again, like I was both salvation and disaster at the same time. 

“Give me one minute,” she whispers urgently. “Please.”

She shuts the door in my face before I can even respond. The chain rattles, and I stand there in the dim hallway like an idiot, hands still in my pocket and heart hammering for reasons I don’t fully understand.

I shouldn’t be here.

I told myself that the entire drive over here. 

After she left the office, I sat at her desk again, breathing in the faint scent, then pulled her address from HR without hesitation, no second thoughts. Just this restless, gnawing need to see her outside the glass walls of my building. To figure out why she feels like a missing piece, I can’t name. 

Now, I’m standing outside her apartment at eleven at night.

The door opens again, wider this time, and she steps out into the hallway and pulls it almost shut behind her, keeping one hand on the knob like she was ready to bolt back inside. She’s changed into simple leggings and an oversized sweater that slips off one shoulder. Her hair is down, curls loose around her face. She looks softer, younger, and more dangerous. 

“Valerio,” she says quietly. No Mr. Cruz this time. “You can’t be here.”

I don’t move. “You have a child?”

She flinches like I just slapped her, and for a second, her eyes glisten before she blinks it away. “Yes.”

The silence stretches between us, and I study her. The protective way she stands in front of the door, and the exhaustion in her shoulders. The way she keeps glancing back like the kid might wander out any second.

“How old?” I ask.

“Three.”

Three.

The timeline claws at something in my chest, and something dark and ugly twists in my gut. Jealousy? I have no right to it. She isn’t mine, and I barely know her. Yet the thought of another man touching her, getting her pregnant, being there for her when she gave birth, makes me want to put my fist through a wall. I don’t know who he is, and whether he is still in her life, but the thought of her belonging to someone else makes me feel violent in a way that I’ve never been with Clara. 

I shut that line of thinking down fast. “Who’s the father?” The question comes out rougher than I intended.

Her chin lifts, and the fire I’d seen in the office flares again. “That’s none of your business.”

“It feels like my business.”

A short and bitter laugh escapes her lips. “You don’t even know me, Valerio.”

“That’s the problem,” I step closer, lowering my voice. “I feel like I do. Every time you look at me. Every time you say my name like you’ve said it a thousand times before. The way you organize my desk, and the way you know exactly how I take my coffee. The way your body reacts when I get too close. Don’t tell me I’m imagining it.”

She swallows hard, her fingers tightening on the doorknob until her knuckles go pale. 

“You should go,” she whispers. “Please.”

I don’t want to. I want to push past her, see the boy, and demand answers to questions I have no right to ask. Instead, I reach out and brush a curl behind her ear, and she doesn’t pull away.

Her breath hitches.

“Tell me one honest thing tonight, Zara.”

Her eyes meet mine. They are beautiful, deep brown, full of secrets, pain, and something that looks a lot like…longing. 

“I’m trying to protect my child,” she says softly. “That’s the only honest thing that matters right now.”

Protect him from what? 

Me?

The thought stings more than it should. 

I want to ask where the father is. I want to know if the man is dead, gone, or simply worthless, so that maybe…just maybe, I won’t have to feel guilty about wanting to replace him. 

What the hell, Cruz! You barely know her, and you have no claim to her. I facepalm, yet here I am in her hallway at midnight, jealous of a man I’ve never seen.

From inside the apartment, the little voice calls again, sleepy and curious. “Mommy? Is that daddy?”

Zara closes her eyes for a second, and pain flashes across her face. When she opens them again, there are tears she refuses to let fall. 

“I have to go inside,” she says. “Goodnight, Valerio.”

She starts to close the door, but I put my hand on it, stopping her. “Look at me.”

She does.

And for one long, charged moment, the hallway disappears, and it’s just us. The pull between us is so strong it feels physical—like gravity trying to drag me forward. I want to kiss her so bad. Right here against her door. Wanted to taste years of whatever the hell this is. Wanted to hear her moan my name the way I’ve imagined ever since I saw her.

Instead, I say, “This isn’t over.”

Her lips part, and something vulnerable crosses her face. Then she gently pushes my hand away and closes the door.

I stand there staring at the wood for a long time after the lock clicks.

… 

I don’t drive home; I go straight to the office. The building is empty, except for security. I go straight to my office, pour a drink, and open my laptop. 

My hand hovers around the mouse, but my thoughts trace to my bottom drawer that I never let anyone touch. I haven’t opened it in months, but tonight, I pull it open. 

The photograph still lies in there, face down as always.

I turn it over.

A woman’s face, scratched out with something sharp, pen marks hide her figure completely. 

I don’t remember her, and I don’t remember doing this. My heart aches, my hand shaking while I trace the scratches, the shape of her jaw. This feeling is why I haven’t looked at it in months. 

I drop it in the drawer and shut it.

Then, I open the old archived files that were corrupted after my accident and start digging, hoping to find anything that would make me understand what I feel. 

Two hours later, my head is pounding, whiskey gone, yet nothing to show for it. Most files are missing or corrupted, as Luca said they would be. But there’s one folder, deeply buried, labeled “Project Sentinel-Personal notes.”

I click it, but it’s empty except for one audio file. 

I hit play.

“Come on, Valerio. You promised you’d take a break. The case can wait one night.”

Goosebumps lace my skin, and my breath hitches. That sounds familiar, like…Zara.

I replay it.

“Come on, Valerio. You promised you’d take a break. The case can wait one night.”

This doesn’t make any sense.

Then my voice comes through the speakers, low and amused. “Only if you come here and make it worth my while, love.”

Love?

Then there’s a slight giggle and a whisper. “I love you. Even when you’re being impossible about this fraud thing.”

The audio ends.

I stare at the black screen, my reflection mocking me, pulse roaring in my ears.

Love.

Fraud.

And a voice that sounds just like her.

I play it again, and again.

The scar on my head throbs, and then fragments of memory flood my brain—a soft laugh, hands on my face, a soft body under mine in this very office—and then it’s gone. No face, just a memory flickering at the edges of my mind. 

Who is she?

And what the fuck happened three years ago?